Over the last few weeks some pretty bright minds have been talking /
writing about what Information Governance (IG) is and isn’t.
Unfortunately, I couldn’t find the restraint to stay out of it. To get
some of the background of what’s been going on, read a few posts from
these guys (I don’t always agree with them, but I do have a great deal
of respect for them and their smarts):

There’s also been a bit of a conversation going on on Twitter involving the folks mentioned above, along with Jeffrey Lewis, Ron Layel, Ron Miller, Bryant Duhon, et moi. Had I been prescient I would have captured / saved the stream and included it here. Oh well.

First things first … the definition of Information Governance I use is the one I wrote: “Information
governance is all the rules, regulations, legislation, standards, and
policies with which organizations need to comply when they create,
share, and use information.”

The thing to remember about IG is that it’s really about policies
that put constraints and roadblocks in the way of working with
information. Implementing the policies, via procedures, is where value
gets added; using the right technologies helps take the burden off of
people. Information Governance without appropriate procedures and tools is just not going to work. Don’t even bother to try.

I am definitely in the camp with those who view IG as an overarching
thing that covers a vast array of disciplines that determine every
aspect of managing, using, storing, sharing, and disposing of
information. And therein lies the problem with IG; it is too broad to be
of real interest to any single executive in the C-suite, unless that
executive’s job is IG and only IG. That said, oversight for IG has to be
centralized in order to be effective on a broad scale, and it has to be
centralized in a manner that allows no bias.

Putting oversight for IG in the hands of the CMO, the CIO, the CLO,
or anyone else in the C-suite, assuming they actually wanted the job,
would likely end up biasing IG towards a specific agenda. IG implemented
has to be good for the overall business. Granted, there are various
drivers, but those drivers cannot be used as justification to sacrifice
or jeopardize other business concerns. Does that mean we need a new
title in the C-suite? Maybe, maybe not. Personally, I’d like to see the
CIO role redefined on a global basis to be the information equivalent of
the CFO and let the various disciplines report into it.

If an organization is a litigation magnet for sure that organization
needs to do whatever is necessary to reduce the risk and the burden. But
it can’t be done in a way that compromises business effectiveness of
other parts of the organization. The policies need to be implemented via
procedures and tools that support the business moving forward. There is
no legitimate reason that one cannot implement litigation risk
mitigation that also benefits the rest of the organization. The
immediate need may be related to litigation, but the long play has to be
holistic. By the same token, getting field manuals to engineers cannot
expose the organization to unnecessary risk or exposure.

During the past few weeks there was also talk about splitting out
Information Governance and Information Management. The short version is
that governance is the policies and management is the procedures. I
don’t think that there’s anything wrong with splitting things out like
that, but does it make a huge difference when trying to convince clients
or execs about the need for governance? I’ve been guilty of using the
terms interchangeably, but I’ve made progress so I don’t care. The fact
is some of my clients get the shakes when I mention IG, but they’re cool
when we talk about IM. The end result is the same except that I have
not “educated” the client about the right terminology. Again, who cares?
My clients don’t hire me to teach them the right terminology so that
they can sound hip when having beverages with the IG illuminati; they
hire me to solve problems or leverage information better.

I really like Barclay’s sentiment: it doesn’t matter what you call it
as long as the concepts are understood and progress is being made.
Ultimately, that’s the bottom line.

We can bang on all we want about IG vs IM or whatever, and continue
to struggle to get buy in and move things forward. Or, we can compromise
our principles a little (it’s not like it’ll matter in the long run
anyways) and focus on telling clients, sponsors, and executives what
they need to hear in a way they understand, are comfortable with, and
ultimately buy into. As long as I do right by my clients, I personally
don’t care whether we call it IG or IM. We can have the philosophical
conversations next time we’re gathered at some conference and it’s only
us nerds talking.

During the Twitter conversation, Ron Layel asked me if I thought that
information is the currency of business. I don’t think so. If an
organization has a bunch of cash sitting in the bank, idle, the cash
doesn’t expose the organization to risk, and it appreciates in value. If
information is just sitting around, it potentially causes risk, and has
no value. Information accumulates, morphs, and transmogrifies too
fluidly to really be considered currency. To be sure, businesses
couldn’t run without information or currency, but unlike information you
can fake currency (think about letters of credit, loans, debentures,
IPO’s, etc.).

One last little point … peeve, actually … there are vendors out there
(hardware, software, services, associations) that tout themselves as
Information Governance vendors. They’re not. They may solve portions of
what IG is, but they don’t do it all.